To think nursery shouldn’t be charging me for bank holidays?

[Givemegoldensun]

Can I ask AIBU? Nursery costs just over £90 a day for an 8 month old, and they expect us to pay for bank holidays when they are not open. To me this seems unreasonable. We are talking about paying £185 for no service (Good Friday/Easter Monday). It this normal practice? I don’t want to be an asshole but we are financially stretched and I don’t think this is fair.

More like what kind of person thinks it's reasonable to not pay. Where do you think the money for the staffs wages or the building e.g electricity/water comes from?

I presume you don't work bank holidays and don't get paid for them?

It's completely normal. The service still needs paying for if the OP wants it to be there for all the other days that are not bank holidays.

Best we stop paying for bank holidays at all then, op can go to the office and her dc can go to nursery..?

If OP is working, her company will be paying her for that day off

They either have to do that or put it in the day rate which wouldn't be fair to those who don't have their child on on mondays

You can argue till you’re blue in the face with me I’m not changing my mind. It’s outrageous to charge a daily rate for a service you’re not getting. My boyfriends a gardener, he doesn’t charge for bank holidays, he budgets his money and we feed the kids.

You don’t charge for a service you’re not providing regardless of your standing costs. You factor standing costs into your overall charges to cover when you are closed.

Say what ever you want but your wasting your time as is who ever responds to me. I think this is wrong and a poor business model.

As a parent of a child who goes part-time, with his days including Monday and Friday, I must admit this drives me mad - especially when his nursery also decided to do a staff training day on a Monday! It’s a brilliant nursery in every other way so we put up with it, but for part-time families it is massively unfair.

I don’t know any childcare that doesn’t charge for Bank Holidays. We don’t pay for many as I opted to work Tues-Fri so don’t need nursery on Monday’s. Definite winner! We only pay usually for Good Friday as Christmas week they are closed and no charge.

Completely normal practice, as frustrating as it might feel.

I'm yet to hear of a nursery that doesn't do this. You read the contract and make your choice. No point complaining about it now.

I have never used a nursery.

However I think it is unreasonable to charge for bank holidays in a direct way, as that way people who use Mondays end up paying disproportionately. I think the nursery should charge a rate by day/hour that covers their costs for closure days. That way the people who use more hours pay more towards bank holidays than those who use fewer.

My son's childminder doesn't charge for bank holidays. I pay her for the days when my son is sick or on holiday but she doesn't ask for pay when she takes holiday or is sick.

Between both kids we've attended 5 different nursery/pre-school settings and have had to pay bank holidays at each one. Totally standard here.

It's normal. If they don't state that they charge for bank holidays, the cost will be factored in elsewhere in the fees, as they legally have to pay their staff for bank holidays.

I actually think YANBU
No other service would do this. The salary would include bank Holidays.

To the PP whose partner is a gardener - he is probably self employed? Very different from a nursery that has costs including rent of the building and employment of. full time staff. These costs have to be accounted for so presumably that's why they charge parents for Bank Holidays. However I would have thought that the costs should be amortised within the daily sums parents pay rather than the expectation that Bank Holidays qualify for a full days extra payment.

Well isn't that just the same?
The staff are entitled to paid bank Holidays so the money has to come from somewhere

Normal but annoying. Fine if your child is in 5 days but it penalises part time workers. I didn't work Mondays because of this. I would rather they spread the cost across the other days as then it would affect everyone equally. But that would make the headline rates higher which they obviously don't want.

Not all nurseries do this, preschool nurseries don't but most of the big chains do I think

What you are missing is who is paying.

In one system (upping the normal daily rate) all the nursery users pay, so those who use it most cover more.
With the other system, the Monday users pay all the costs for a Monday for a service they aren't getting.

In extreme it means Monday users pay for 6 days they can't use. (When xmas and NY are Mondays as well as the 2 in May, 1 in august plus Easter Monday).

I think it would be fairer to up the hourly fee for all.

Ours only charged for days that they were actually open, no charge for bank holidays or the week closure at Christmas.

Totally standard. They still have staff and building costs.

Our nursery averages the cost over the year so we pay the same each month regardless of how many days there are per month or any closures. If is easier for both the nursery and the parents to pay the same every month.

Thanks for explaining

A nursery is also a standalone business just like a gardener. A gardener has to pay living expenses and has tools, a van, insurance overheads. There is no difference from that point of view. It's a choice made by some nurseries to keep headline rates slightly lower.

private nurseries charge a huge amount in comparison to what they pay their very underpaid workers. There is limited correlation between the two. This is clearly about profit, not paying minimum wage workers. To think otherwise is incredibly naive.

Their overheads-rent/gas/electricity/water plus staff pay rises will be sky high-it’s naive to think all nurseries are making massive profits. Many are closing because they can’t break even.

It’s the same at DS nursery, was the case at the ones we looked at before sending him there, and is the same at the preschool he’s moving to later this year. Think about it, does your employer pay you for bank holidays even when you’re not working? Most do. This is how the nurseries pay their staff. The only time our nursery doesn’t charge us is for the week they close over Christmas, but even then we’re charged for the bank holidays within that period, it’s only the working days they close we don’t get charged for. Pretty standard practice in my experience- and I’ve looked round a fair few nurseries both before DS started nursery altogether and later last year when we started looking to move him.

Lots of the big chains are making huge profits - there was a guardian article on it within the last couple of months

Think of it like it's a club where parents are grouping together to get a qualified childminder